Double Winning St Johnstone FC Thread

[Saint Huck]

8 hours ago, RandomGuy. said:

I worried about him bragging about what "his team" was going to do, and how he'd be playing attacking exciting football with youngsters playing because it felt like a fantasy rather than reality.

 

Think that's pretty common with new managers ... until they find out it doesn't work and the cold reality of the situation kicks in.  Prospect of relegation, fear of losing their job, criticism in the media, etc etc.  Then its back to the latest version of Davidson ball - defend at all cost.  Hopefully things work out for him .... 

[shibbydoo]

13 hours ago, mizfit said:

I can’t disagree with his comments just now. He might not be the man who bares the fruit of the seeds he planting, but he’s not beating about the bush. 

Were you watching Gardeners World when you wrote this?

[RandomGuy.]

51 minutes ago, Saint Huck said:

Think that's pretty common with new managers ... until they find out it doesn't work and the cold reality of the situation kicks in.  Prospect of relegation, fear of losing their job, criticism in the media, etc etc.  Then its back to the latest version of Davidson ball - defend at all cost.  Hopefully things work out for him .... 

Hoping how strongly hes stuck to what he wants in the transfer window means he'll stick by his desire to avoid negative hoofball.

[Radford]

You look rationally at it and wonder just what the manager can do with the squad he currently has available. There is zero presence up front, zero pace out wide and zero full backs full stop. How do you mould that into a team? Especially when you are playing against a side that, I think, only started one new signing yesterday? 

Maybe some managers could achieve it but ours is a dozen games into his career. As I say, what was/is the answer?

So when he gets the injured players/new signings available he probably has around a dozen more players to pick from. 

That's the rational argument.

But then I look at James Brown (not ours) and Nathaniel Atkinson and even when we have everyone fit we won't have anything like that quality at right back. Maybe understandable with Hearts but if County have players so much better than us, who doesn't?

I understand he didn't want to release absolutely everyone (although in fairness he did come close) but James Brown (our one) as a starting full back just won't cut it and we are covering a turd in glitter with the talking up of Gallacher as well.

The two new young defenders showed their naivety yesterday and will need to learn very quickly but they are getting f**k all help from the experienced faces around them.

Maybe no help though is better than being moaned at constantly as is the offering from our experienced head in midfield. The best thing Liam Gordon did yesterday was tell Graham Carey to shut the f**k up and stop moaning.

Of course we should feel sorry for Stevie May being asked to do what he's being tasked with but he's 30-years-old now, he needs to get the sleeves rolled up, adapt, and try to offer a bit more to a struggling side. Just fucking win some fouls at least, then at least we can let Carey put a free kick straight out of play or something.

A lot of this could have been in the match thread but it did start with a general point on trying to keep a cool head. As you can see, that disappeared as the post went on.

I would say another game isn't going to kill us (although a Jack Ross-type humiliation at Celtic Park might change the conversation) so need to try and just spend the next 3 weeks getting the squad in a MUCH better place.

[RandomGuy.]

3 hours ago, PSJ.84 said:

Davidson took the majority of the heat last season because people, myself included, simply wanted shot of him. 

Aye thats fair, tbh. And maybe some of the players have just had excuses made for them for too long? Id be bad for it last season trying to blame the tactics and maybe started doing that again this year.

Guess someone like Stevie May knows a bad performance will be blamed on him playing as a lone striker now, rather than directed straight at him. You compare him to Bruce Anderson and its not even a contest about who youd rather have alone up front, yet physically they seem very similar.

[Kyle]

The 10 injured players, when you break it down, don't really provide many answers either 

Wills and Sinclair are back up goalkeepers ans have played 4 games between them. 
 

Brown, Booth and Gallacher improve us at full back but would they play for any other team in the top flight? Doubt it 

Wright will improve us and is one of our better players 

Macpherson, same as the full backs for me 

Crawford  

Kane and Clark both improve us but I think you play Kane as a lone striker or you partner Clark with May, I don't see them gelling all that well as a partnership.

If it hadn't been for the new signings yesterday, I think we were down to about 7 senior players who were with us last season, the rest being kids and/or out on loan elsewhere. 

[PauloPerth]

16 minutes ago, Kyle said:

The 10 injured players, when you break it down, don't really provide many answers either 

This is it for me as well. With the full squad back we will probably be more solid, but there’s hardly an array of match winning talent in there.

Hopefully some of the experienced players coming back in gives those around them a lift as well.

I have the absolute fear for Celtic park in 2 weeks. Davidson could organise a team to be solid defensively and hard to break down, and found a moderately successful - by our standards- way of setting up against the OF.  I’m not sure Maclean has the personnel or tactical nous (defensively) to do similar.

 

[DukDukGoose]

10 hours ago, RandomGuy. said:

Aye, this.

Ive sympathy with MacLean as he inherited a shitshow and the task this Summer of cutting the squad in half, lowering the wage bill overall, lowering the age of the squad, but also improving the squad to avoid relegation, is near impossible. 

But at the same time hes been here for years and knew exactly what he was getting into.

I worried about him bragging about what "his team" was going to do, and how he'd be playing attacking exciting football with youngsters playing because it felt like a fantasy rather than reality. Just been assuming he was saying it to try and put some bravado in the squad, but kind of worrying now he genuinely thought he could manage that while inheriting a husk of one of the worst squads in the division.

Shafted by injuries etc., causes problems and the quality is lacking, but the lack of effort/structure around us is on him and his training. Next games a write off but the Dundee game isnt, if we're still a shambles at that point then people will start to turn and his interviews will start to lose their meaning. Words are just words.

[tree house tam]

It's the lack of basics that is totally annoying me. Dan Phillips does a few peices of fancy footwork and impresses opposition fans, all I see is him letting players constantly run off him because he's a lazy b*****d. Get a fucking grip of these c***s Macca. 

[Derry Alli]

I've just watched his interview and I have two questions so..

1) Is this an act? There's no danger a grown adult is that dead behind the eyes and monotone.

2) @Honest Saints Fan, genuinely, how do you find that man attractive?

[Zamora Fan]

 Defence a total shambles at the minute and that’s with all the signings in the door + and the v limited Brown, Gallacher and Booth the only injured absentees. To protect the atrocious CBs as much as possible I’d be going, quite depressingly, with this at Parkhead as things stand.
 

   McClelland Gordon Considine 

Wright                                      Gallacher

                       McGowan

                   Phillips  Smith

          Jephcott                May

Literally the only aim is to keep it tight and hope you can get the ball to Smith to find Wright or May in space on the break. Jephcott in there to get him minutes more than anything else.

If we don’t get pumped 5-0+ i’d keep it for Dundee too, maybe bringing in Carey or this mythical winger/forward/midfielder if they materialise between now and then.

Edit: this assumes Wright and Gallacher will be fit in a fortnight. If they aren’t we might as well pack it in.

Edited August 13, 2023 by Zamora Fan

[Savage Henry]

10 minutes ago, Derry Alli said:

I've just watched his interview and I have two questions so..

1) Is this an act? There's no danger a grown adult is that dead behind the eyes and monotone.

2) @Honest Saints Fan, genuinely, how do you find that man attractive?

He looks completely out of his depth doing basic interviews, and while that might not be the biggest of his problems, it’s a pretty important part of being a manager.  
 

That said, Martindale can barely string a coherent sentence together but seems to do okay. 
 

You do sense MacLean will lose the rag with an interviewer and look a complete fool at some point.  There’s a deep fear and loathing within that man. 

[SJFCtheTeamForMe]

For me it matters very little at the moment what shape it is. I see people debating whether the current squad would be better in a back 3 etc. 

If nearly every time a cross comes into the box someone is allowed a free header on goal you're not going to win many games regardless of shape. 

The Stirling first goal clearly not a one off. Jordon White had a great chance at 2-0. I've not seen it again but at the time it didn't look like he had to do that much to end up in acres of space. There was countless others yesterday where we had bodies back but the bodies were more statues than defenders. 

The set pieces were difficult to defend against but we kept giving away the foul out wide and then trying to hold a high line. Also wasn't helped by Collum deciding to give County a corner on at least two occasions where it clearly wasn't after a free kick as well. 

That's before you get into the fact we couldn't string 3 passes together unless they were backwards. 

Not sure the manager is doing himself any favours by publicly slating the squad so heavily. Yes the experienced players haven't produced enough, probably because they're not up to it but public humiliation if they're already not the strongest mentally is just going to make things worse. 

Edited August 13, 2023 by SJFCtheTeamForMe

[Kyle]

Again, maybe it's just because Davidson's interviews were so awful, but I don't think they're too bad. I can't see the players responding positively to a lot of them, or if they do it'll be diminishing returns from them 

[The Saintee]

100% agree with @RadfordThe money wasted by Davidson is eye watering and we have zero to show for it. An absolute collection of wasters.

[PauloPerth]

I’m okay with Macca’s interview. 
 

It’d be easy to hide behind the injuries and lack of options and say the players did their best under the circumstances etc, but he’s letting them know it’s not good enough and they need to do better. 
 

Hopefully it’s not just playing to the gallery and saying what fans want to hear. The issue is once you’ve gone down this route you have to get a reaction soon, otherwise you could end up having to slaughter them every week.

I prefer straight talking to the slavering nonsense of the likes of John Hughes, Dave Martindale, Tam Courts, Lee Johnson, Jack Ross, Steven Pressley etc, but I guess everyone’s different.

[Honest Saints Fan]

50 minutes ago, Derry Alli said:

I've just watched his interview and I have two questions so..

1) Is this an act? There's no danger a grown adult is that dead behind the eyes and monotone.

2) @Honest Saints Fan, genuinely, how do you find that man attractive?

Because when he's on the pitch he's unplayable, a winner and angry. Its hot

Shame we've got a team full of shitebags that are nothing like him.

[RandomGuy.]

1 hour ago, DukDukGoose said:

Was it you that compared him to Richie Foran?

There are starting to be similarities between us and ICT when they went down.

Former cup winning manager (Hughes) saddles club with huge, unsustainable, wage bill, and leaves due to the obvious decline thats causing. Former striker, with aggressive streak on the pitch, takes charge (Foran) on a long deal and promises exciting attacking football. They oversee a large rebuild with 10+ departures/lots of cheap punts as incomings.

They start off with 3 defeats in the league and Foran gives this interview, which is terrifyingly similar.

He increasingly loses it as the season goes on before leaving after their relegation. 

[DukDukGoose]

3 minutes ago, RandomGuy. said:

Was it you that compared him to Richie Foran?

There are starting to be similarities between us and ICT when they went down.

Former cup winning manager (Hughes) saddles club with huge, unsustainable, wage bill, and leaves due to the obvious decline thats causing. Former striker, with aggressive streak on the pitch, takes charge (Foran) on a long deal and promises exciting attacking football. They oversee a large rebuild with 10+ departures/lots of cheap punts as incomings.

They start off with 3 defeats in the league and Foran gives this interview, which is terrifyingly similar.

He increasingly loses it as the season goes on before leaving after their relegation. 

Nah but I was on here saying that he should try his best to work with what he has until trying to implement a style a couple of windows in.

[sergie's no1 fan]

24 minutes ago, RandomGuy. said:

Was it you that compared him to Richie Foran?

There are starting to be similarities between us and ICT when they went down.

Former cup winning manager (Hughes) saddles club with huge, unsustainable, wage bill, and leaves due to the obvious decline thats causing. Former striker, with aggressive streak on the pitch, takes charge (Foran) on a long deal and promises exciting attacking football. They oversee a large rebuild with 10+ departures/lots of cheap punts as incomings.

They start off with 3 defeats in the league and Foran gives this interview, which is terrifyingly similar.

He increasingly loses it as the season goes on before leaving after their relegation. 

He's giving me Gary Teale vibes after we sacked Tommy Craig, after letting Danny Lennon go.

Can only do so much with what you have got, he said the squad he has isn't good enough and need help by bringing players in, maybe a wee dig at them to up it, question their ability, it can obviously back fire quickly if they take the huff.

Looks like a car crash in slow motion just now, do the board take the risk and throw more cash at it? I'm not a believer that relegation means fresh start ect, that division can be a nightmare to get out of, especially if your squad is full of shitebags.